‘Embodiment of Evil’: Man Who Kidnapped Jayme Closs, Murdered Her Parents Gets Life in Prison

Jake Patterson, 21, was sentenced Friday after pleading guilty to two counts of intentional homicide and one of kidnapping

By Amy Forliti •Published May 24, 2019•Updated on May 24, 2019 at 6:35 pm

A Wisconsin man was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for kidnapping 13-year-old Jayme Closs and killing her parents in a case that mystified authorities until the girl made a daring escape from the remote cabin where she was held for 88 days.

Jake Patterson, 21, was sentenced Friday after pleading guilty in March to two counts of intentional homicide and one of kidnapping. He admitted to abducting Jayme in October after killing her parents, James and Denise Closs, at the family's home near Barron, about 90 miles northeast of Minneapolis. Jayme escaped in January from Patterson's cabin near the small and isolated town of Gordon, some 60 miles from her home.

"There is no doubt in my mind you are one of the most dangerous people to walk this planet," Judge James C. Babler told Patterson. "You are the embodiment of evil. The public can only be safe if you are incarcerated until you die.

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"There is a difference between regret and remorse," Judge Babler continued. "I have no doubt that you have regret, and I have no doubt that you have no remorse."

Patterson was sentenced to consecutive life sentences in the murder of Closs' parents, and was sentenced to 40 years in prison for kidnapping Jayme Closs in a plot that the judge called pre-meditated and carefully planned.

Patterson told authorities he decided Jayme "was the girl he was going to take" after he saw her getting on a school bus near her home, according to a criminal complaint. He told investigators he plotted carefully, including wearing all-black clothing, putting stolen license plates on his car and taking care to leave no fingerprints on his shotgun.

"I would do anything I could to undo what I did," Patterson said during his sentencing. "If I could bring them back, I would. I'm so sorry."

Jayme told police that the night of her abduction, the family dog's barking awoke her, and she went to wake up her parents as a car came up the driveway. While her father went to the front door, Jayme and her mother hid in the bathroom, clutching each other in the bathtub, the shower curtain pulled shut.

Patterson shot Jayme's father as he entered the house, then found Jayme and her mother. He told detectives he wrapped tape around Jayme's mouth and head, taped her hands behind her back and taped her ankles together, then shot her mother in the head. He told police he dragged Jayme outside and threw her in the trunk of his car, the complaint said.

At his cabin, Patterson forced Jayme to hide under a bed when he had friends over and penned her in with tote boxes and weights, warning that if she moved, "bad things could happen to her," according to the complaint. He also turned up the radio so visitors couldn't hear her.

Prosecutors in the county where Jayme was held decided not to bring charges related to anything that might have happened in the cabin, a move that was widely seen as aiming to spare Jayme further pain and keep details private.

Authorities searched for Jayme for months and collected more than 3,500 tips. Jayme escaped on Jan. 10 while Patterson was away and flagged down a woman who was walking a dog. Patterson was arrested minutes later.